R.I. is vulnerable if U.S. pulls out of Paris Accord, says scientist

Wednesday

May 31, 2017 at 7:46 PMMay 31, 2017 at 7:46 PM

Alex Kuffner Journal Staff Writer kuffneralex

PROVIDENCE — President Donald Trump’s potential decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord will not derail efforts in Rhode Island to invest in clean energy, but the state could still feel the effects of the move in the longer term.

“It means greater risks to Rhode Island,” J. Timmons Roberts, Ittleson professor of environmental studies and sociology at Brown University, said of stepping away from the landmark 2015 agreement. “We are the Ocean State. With 400 miles of coastline, our vulnerable neighborhoods are at risk from greater flooding and more extreme weather.”

But Roberts said that any move to pull away from the 195-nation pact shouldn’t lead to a softening of state-level or regional programs. In fact, as a state with a high vulnerability to climate risks and no fossil fuel deposits of its own, Rhode Island “can be a leader and should be a leader” in investing in renewable sources of energy, he said.

The state is already on the way to transitioning away from fossil fuels through net metering, distributed generation and other state programs to compensate businesses and homeowners for renewable energy and with the help of grants and loans to defray the upfront costs of installing solar panels and wind turbines.

Rhode Island ranked fourth behind Massachusetts, California and Vermont in an April report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that assessed “clean energy momentum” based on investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy and vehicle electrification programs.

Even though a sweeping proposal to tax carbon emissions faces a rocky path in the General Assembly, more incremental changes are winning legislative support. Most recently, a bill introduced by Rep. Aaron Regunberg, a Providence Democrat, that would allow nonprofits, educational institutions and houses of worship to sign up for what’s known as “remote net metering” won House approval.

Gov. Gina Raimondo has set a target of generating 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy in Rhode Island by 2020, a ten-fold increase from a 2016 baseline of about 100 megawatts.

Other New England states are also moving forward with cleaner energy technologies, most notably through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade program that has helped reduce emissions among its member states by 40 percent in eight years while generating $2.6 billion that has been put toward energy efficiency and other measures.

The initiative has helped fuel the decline of coal-fired generating capacity in the region, which has dropped from 12 percent in 2000 to 3 percent today. Indeed, Brayton Point Power Station, the largest coal-burning plant in New England, shut down at midnight on June 1, three years after its closing was announced.

“Despite the President’s best efforts, fossil fuels are on their way out,” Bradley Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, said in a statement. “Brayton Point’s closure means Massachusetts is now coal-free, and the rest of New England will follow.”

But he acknowledged that natural gas, which is cleaner-burning but still a fossil fuel, has more than supplanted coal as the prime energy source in the regional power grid and he argued against increasing reliance on it.

That message was echoed at a protest Wednesday afternoon on Allens Avenue in Providence, in front of a liquefied natural gas facility that utility National Grid plans to upgrade.

Holding signs with messages like “Save the Planet, Stop Trump” and “Climate change is real,” the small group of protesters voiced their support for the Paris accord and talked about what could happen if the United States pulls out.

“We’re going to be an archipelago of little islands,” said Dave Gerraughty, of Clean Water Action. “We don’t want to see that happen.”